1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for correcting errors present in stored or transmitted data; and, more particularly, to an apparatus for evaluating an error evaluator polynomial, an error locator polynomial and a differential polynomial which are used in correcting errors in the data encoded by using an algebraic code, such as a Reed-Solomon code.
2. Description of Related Art
Noise occurring during a process of transmitting, storing or retrieving data can in turn cause errors in the transmitted, stored or retrieved data. Accordingly, various encoding techniques, having the capability of rectifying such errors, for encoding the data to be transmitted or stored have been developed.
In such encoding techniques, a set of check bits is appended to a group of message or information bits to form a codeword. The check bits, which are determined by an encoder, are used to detect and correct the errors. In this regard, the encoder essentially treats the bits comprising the message bits as coefficients of a binary message polynomial and derives the check bits by multiplying the message polynomial R(x) with a code generator polynomial G(x) or dividing R(x) by G(x), to thereby provide a codeword polynomial C(x). The code generator polynomial is selected to impart desired properties to a codeword upon which it operates so that the codeword will belong to a particular class of error-correcting binary group codes (see, e.g., S. Lin et al., "Error Control Coding: Fundamentals and Applications", Prentice-Hall, 1983).
One class of error correcting codes is the well-known BCH (Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghen) codes, which include the Reed-Solomon ("RS") code. The mathematical basis of the RS code is explained in, e.g., the aforementioned reference by Lin et al. and also in Berlekamp, "Algebraic Coding Theory", McGraw-Hill, 1968, which is further referred to in U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,480 issued to Berlekamp. The aforementioned references are hereby incorporated by reference in pertinent part.